What should be paid attention to in US FBA shipping?
What is US Ocean Shipping?Shipping by sea in the United States means that the first journey from China to the United States is carried by sea, and after arriving at the port of the United States for customs clearance and unpacking, the final part is delivered by express or truck. The fast ship refers to the delivery by express delivery such as UPS/FEDEX at the end, and the slow ship refers to the delivery by truck.
There are three main types of shipping products in the United States. The first one is the express ship of Shanghai Mason. The seller who chooses this ship, whether it is delivered in Shenzhen or other regions, the logistics provider must send the goods to Shanghai for loading, and then go to Shanghai. Matson Shipping Co., Ltd., which claims to be "the fastest ship in China's shipping", will close its warehouse on Monday and sail on Wednesday, and it will arrive in Los Angeles in about 11 days. After customs clearance and unpacking in Los Angeles, express delivery will be carried out.
It takes about 19-23 days from the closing of the warehouse on Friday to the delivery to the Amazon warehouse. It takes about 19 days for the goods to reach the West of the United States, and about 23 days to reach the East of the United States; in sea freight, its speed is the fastest. Therefore, the price is also the most expensive, with an average of about 13 yuan/KG.
The biggest advantage of Matson Clippers is that in addition to the fastest voyage, it has its own dedicated terminal in Los Angeles. Other shipping companies use public terminals. It takes about a week to unload cargo at the port during the peak shipping season, while Matson Clippers The cabinet can be picked up within 1-2 days after docking at the port, and the advantage is particularly obvious during the peak season!
The second one is the Shenzhen Express. This ship is from Yantian, Shenzhen to Los Angeles. It takes about 13-15 days to arrive in Los Angeles after sailing. After unpacking, arrange for express delivery. The normal time limit for this ship is about 22-26 days from the closing of the warehouse on Thursday to Amazon’s warehouse, that is, 22 days to the West of the United States and 26 days to the East of the United States; the price is between Shanghai Matson Clippers and The average cost of shipping between slow ships is about 10 yuan/KG.
The third type is slow ship delivery by sea. Its first journey is the same as that of the Shenzhen express ship service. The only difference is that after the product arrives in Los Angeles and unpacked, it will be delivered by a truck, so the time limit will be slower. Counting from the closing of the warehouse, the time limit is about It is 26~38 days. The charging standard of the slow boat is calculated according to the cubic of the product. The charging of the first two fast boats is calculated according to KG, so the price of the slow boat is also the cheapest.
The above timeliness refers to the timeliness under normal circumstances, but there are many factors that affect the timeliness of sea delivery.
Comparison of US fba sea delivery and US fba air delivery：
The timeliness of the direct flight is about 5-9 days, and the air delivery of the transfer flight may sometimes take about 10-18 days to arrive. Its price is much more expensive than sea delivery.
Sea delivery is the most cost-effective, but the timeliness of sea delivery by fast ship is about 2 weeks slower than air delivery, and slow ship will take longer; in terms of price, the price of sea delivery by fast ship is equivalent to about 30% of the price of air delivery. The price is about 10% to 20% of that of AirPay.
Everyone knows that shipping products are cheap, but at the same time, there are many complaints. Therefore, many cross-border sellers feel that shipping shipping is not stable enough, so they hesitate to use it.
Disadvantages of US fba shipping by sea:
The first downside, the price.
At present, the prices and regulations of different logistics service providers on the market are not the same for sea delivery, so it is necessary to compare and confirm the quotations of multiple logistics providers first. The quotation table for sea delivery is relatively complicated, and some include tax Taxes are not included, some charge customs declaration fees and some do not, some require delivery fees and some do not, as well as the shared cost of customs inspection at the port of destination, Amazon's truck overtime fees, etc., and some hidden costs.
The second shortcoming is the time limit for US fba shipping.
This is also a critical issue for sea delivery now. The timeliness stability of sea delivery is worse than that of air delivery. What factors will affect the timeliness of sea delivery:
1. dump goods
For sea delivery, a container can hold about 68 cubic meters of goods, but it is impossible for the seller to send so much at one time, each time there are only a few cubic meters to dozens of cubic meters, but sea delivery must be full of 68 cubic meters For the goods, the next box will be loaded after the container is full. The cost of each container is relatively fixed. The number or weight of the goods received has a break-even line. If it is lower than the break-even line, the ship The shipping company will lose money, so when the goods are not enough, in order not to lose money, the logistics provider may dump the goods to the next water, resulting in a one-week delay. We call this situation "dumping goods". There is another situation, a container can only hold 68 cubic meters of goods, but what should the logistics provider do if they receive 80 cubic meters of goods? The last extra part will still be dumped, but the vast majority of logistics providers will arrange shipments in the same week, and the cases of dumping are only a few.
2. Customs inspection
When exporting from China and importing from the United States, it is necessary to declare to the customs. It is inevitable that there will be a small probability of inspection. If the export is declared to the customs, if it is inspected by the domestic customs, it is very likely that it will not be able to catch up with the ship this week; while the goods are imported in the United States. At that time, if it is inspected by the US customs, it will take 5-7 days to solve it. Therefore, customs inspection is one of the core factors affecting the timeliness of shipping by sea. However, this is a matter of probability and cannot be intervened by human beings.
The seller is most concerned about the safety of the goods after customs inspection. A container often contains goods from many different sellers. As long as there is a problem with the goods of one of the sellers, the goods in this container will be temporarily detained for inspection and delay time. If you If you want to avoid this kind of risk, you still need to control the source of the product selection, and don't take chances. There is no need to mention the customs inspection to change color. As long as there is no problem with your goods, even if it encounters inspection, it will only delay a little time.
3. Delay in sailing time due to special circumstances
The third influencing factor is the departure time of the shipping company. Just as the airlines will delay the departure time due to weather, the shipping company will sometimes delay the departure time due to some unexpected special circumstances.
4. Unloading time
When the shipping company arrives at the port of Los Angeles, it needs to line up to unload the cargo. (Containers need to be unloaded to the dock before they can be picked up.) There will also be some uncertainty about the unloading time. In the off-season, it may only take 2 days for unloading , but in peak season, unloading may take 3-5 days, or even about 7 days.
5. Truck time limit and appointment
If it is a fast ship by sea, it is easier to deal with express delivery later, because there is no need to make an appointment to send to the Amazon warehouse, but if it is a slow ship by sea, if the final part is delivered by truck, there will be some variables. A large warehouse such as ONT8, FTW1, ABE8, etc., has relatively more goods in the large warehouse, so the timeliness will be more guaranteed. From the perspective of truck transportation time, it usually only takes about 1 to 2 days to reach the FBA warehouse in the west of the United States. It only takes about 4-5 days to get to the FBA warehouse in the East of the United States, but you need to wait for the truck company to deliver and collect the goods. Some of them are once a week, and some are three to four times a week. It will take some time.
If it is a peak season, it will be a very troublesome problem to make an appointment for a truck on Amazon. Sometimes it will not be possible to make an appointment after a week. This is also some objective reasons that are difficult to grasp.
Remarks: The above content is only an internal opinion and is for reference only.
